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Aperture Desk Job (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Yes, I have a Steam Deck. And you know what? It’s actually great. I was sure it’d be horrible and clunky and just a bit wrong, but actually, it isn’t. Well, OK, it is still a bit clunky.

To show off the ten trillion different sticks, buttons, pads, flaps, twiddles, surfaces and touchybits that the Steam Deck packs to ensure there’s a workable control method for just about every game you can throw at it, Valve created a free game in the Portal universe. Aperture Desk Job puts you in the shoes of a new worker at Aperture Science, testing a never ending supply of toilets for their ability to flush and accept a bottom.

Quickly this turns into something else entirely with turrettoilets and a slightly unhinged robot (in a Portal game? Never!) and a thinly disguised tutorial on how to use all those ten trillion inputs I just mentioned. Some point the guns. Some point the toilet. Some fire rockets.

Toileturret or Turretoilet?

It’s very short and not going to win any GOTY awards, but in Portal fashion it’s funny and a bit silly and is certainly great as a freebie. And! Lots of toilets!

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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After the travesty that was Kirby 64, I thought I’d play this on the SNES service on the Switch. It’s been ages since I last did (and even then it was in Japanese), and I’d forgotten – and been tainted by 64 – just how good it looked. In fact, it’s probably the best looking SNES game. How did they go from this to that? Unpossible.

I love the crayony style of the graphics. Kirby 64 just looks so empty and bland in comparison.

I haven’t collected everything on every level, and I’ve not done all of the “missions” each one presents you with. so I presume there’s a secret extra world yet to come for when you do, but I beat a final boss and got the credits.

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I had no idea there were bad Kirby games. Certainly, Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Not Smash Bros Because It’s Only Kirby in Different Colours Clash aren’t amazing, but they’re inoffensive and not really proper Kirby games. But Kirby 64 is bad. And not in a 1980s way.

Considering that it came out after Mario 64, and is a much simpler game being only 2D (well, 2.5D really), how is it that this looks terrible? It’s worse than the NES game. Hell, it’s worse than almost every game. But it was free on the Nintendo 64 thingie on the Nintendo Online doofer, so can I really complain?

Unusually for a game, it actually looks better as a static image than when moving.

It tries to make up for it by being cute and stuff and having the usual Kirby twee choons and jingles, but it’s so slow, so ugly and so impressively dull that it’s a wonder anyone can play it for more than ten minutes.

So after about three hours, I completed it. Obviously. And we shall Never Speak of This Again.

Worst boss ever.

Minit (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Another PS+ free rental, but a game I’ve nearly bought more than once elsewhere and actually own on PC (but I don’t have my Steam Deck yet to play it on!). Minit’s “thing” is that it’s a Zelda-ish game only you die every sixty seconds. Or sooner. And then you start again.

However, some things are persistent and you do reach respawn points and open shortcuts so dying isn’t really an inconvenience.

There’s a plot about having to go into some factory to destroy it, but most of what happens is irrelevant to that in any sort of meaningful way bar Metroidvania style map unlocking and progression. It’s a short game (as in, maybe a couple of hours rather than an actual minute), and isn’t very difficult, although I did get stuck trying to find a particular character because I hadn’t tried doing everything imaginable up until that point.

Cheap, short, fun.

I Am Dead (PS5): COMPLETED!

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With PS+ Premium comes a huge number of games you can “borrow”. A few of those are titles I was eyeing up to buy on the Switch, so I suppose I’ve saved a bit of money now I’ve got them on my PlayStation “for free”.

I Am Dead is one of those. It’s a hidden object game with a story and some quirks. Firstly, you’re dead (but then you surely guessed that from the title), and with the help of your talking dead dog, you explore the quaint little island you both used to live on probing the thoughts of those still alive, and then trying to find objects relating to other dead people in order to summon their souls. In a nice way.

The objects are usually hidden inside of things, but instead of opening doors, lifting flaps or pushing things out of the way in something like Hidden Folks, you sort of “slice” into them like those ham machines you get in the delicatessen. Find all five items and you can put the soul back together and have a chat with the deceased.

The ultimate aim is to find a replacement for the old island spirit, who has been preventing the local volcano from erupting for centuries but is now tired (or something) and the story follows both her past as a human and the past and present of the other islanders. Despite all the death and the pending apocalypse, it’s all very light hearted and the characters (and their voices) are excellent. It’s not a hard game and the only real puzzles are optional (where you find a “slice” of some scenery that matches a shape you’ve been given), but it’s nice. In the best way of calling something “nice”.